Often, when I’m out making photographs in rural Central Vermont, I think about what things used to be like. What sounds and smells were there? What wasn’t there that is now? How has the landscape changed? It is, of course, quite easy to imagine the scene from 100 or more years ago because some of it has changed very little, at least to the casual viewer.
Community events, like today’s presidential election, or Town Meeting Day or any of the major holidays, must have been quite exciting for the farm families in outlying areas. I don’t pretend such things are any less hard than they must have been—although it is easy to do so—rather I feel the very real human connections that are so obvious between then and today.
I very much appreciate the sense of continuity that comes from seeing an old barn or a stone wall. It helps me realize, once again, that change is inevitable, while, at the same time, there exists a certain valuable persistence. Today I honor those two seemingly contrary notions as I go to the polls to vote, both confident and accepting of the results I’ll hear about tonight.
The Cummings Farm barn in East Montpelier is a gem! Recently the citizens of Vermont invested $10,000—no small sum for a Yankee!—to rebuild the foundation, part of a publicly supported program for Barn Preservation that helps us remember our past.
It is not hard to imagine hearing the cows at the neighbor’s farm in the distance or seeing a wagon of hay being drawn up the ramp by a team of horses.
Still Learning To See 